Surfing in a popular sport in many parts of the world. Surfing generally involves a surfer riding a wave while upright on a surfboard. The surfer is able to control the surfboard by positioning himself at different locations on the surfboard and by varying his center of gravity. The surfboard (and other types of watercraft) typically have one or more fins or skegs located on the underside of the surfboard. These fins are designed to guide and steer the surfboard through the water. Many surfboards are designed and manufactured such that the fins are fixed in place and cannot be adjusted.
One drawback to the fixed fin configuration of conventional surfboards is that oftentimes a surfer (especially a professional surfer) will want to customize a surfboard to achieve desired surfing characteristics. The most direct way to “fine tune” or customize their surfboard is by adjusting the fins. Adjustment of the fins fine tunes the performance of the surfboard to achieve a desired customization. However, the fixed configuration of conventional fins prevents a surfer from adjusting the fins to correct or vary surfboard characteristics.
One way that has been tried to overcome this problem is to set a roll angle of the fins to a preset position during the manufacturing process. The roll angle is the angular displacement of the fin relative to a longitudinal axis of the fin, where the longitudinal axis is in a fore and aft direction. By adjusting the roll angle of the fins, the surfer can obtain at least some of the desired performance characteristics from the surfboard. In theory, the surfer sets forth the surfing characteristics desired from the surfboard, the manufacturer adjusts the fin roll angle to achieve the desired performance, and the fins are fixed into the desired position. In practice, however, a desired fin alignment is difficult to keep during the manufacturing process. Even if the roll angle is as desired when the fin is first mounted, this angle may shift as the manufacturing process progresses. Properly aligning the roll angle of the fins is even more difficult when there are multiple fins. For example, the roll angle of multiple fins (such as a side-by-side configuration) typically must be aligned with respect to each other. Since the fins are fixed, any misalignment in roll angle cannot be corrected and a mistake in aligning even one of the fins may ruin the entire surfboard.
A partial solution to this problem was described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,244,921 to Karl D. Pope entitled “Fin Attachment System Allowing Roll Angle Alignment” filed on Jan. 24, 2000 and issued on Jun. 12, 2001. In the '921 patent, the solution was to provide a means for full adjustment of the fin roll angle about a longitudinal axis. However, the '921 patent only provides adjustment in one degree of freedom. Namely, only the roll angle of the fin is adjustable. This can make it difficult to fully achieve the desired surfboard characteristics. Thus, what is needed is an adjustable fin apparatus and method having adjustment in other degrees of freedom including the roll angle to allow fine tuning of desired performance characteristics.